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Some of Bretzfelder’s fellow club members had decided not to attend that day, predicting the museum would feel too overwhelming. A few others decided to go, but then felt too uncomfortable to stay.
Bretzfelder was among the members who made it through the exhibits and then met with museum staff members to offer suggestions on how they could improve the experience for autistic adults.
“I appreciated that,” Bretzfelder said of how the staff asked for feedback and then listened.
On Sunday night, the Spy Museum will hold its first sensory-friendly program for adults. That night, Bretzfelder and others will get to walk through the building without encountering loud noises, large crowds or extreme lighting. They also won’t have to share the space with children.
So often when places offer sensory-friendly events, they are designed with families and kids in mind. But what makes Sunday’s event unique is that it recognizes autistic children grow up and have their own needs and wants as adults. That night, they will get to eat and drink during a social hour, meet a former spy and participate in an adult-appropriate scavenger hunt. The museum will also make a quiet room available for anyone who needs it.
“What might be a mission impossible visit during normal operating hours is now mission possible!” reads a description of the event on the museum’s website.
The Spy Museum is a place that explores the history of espionage and showcases top-secret gadgets, but to make that Sunday event happen took openness. It took the museum listening to autistic adults.
Lucy Stirn, the director of youth education for the museum, said the staff has held sensory-friendly events for children and families since 2016, and started talking about also holding one for adults before the pandemic.
“We were getting a ton of emails saying, ‘Why aren’t you doing an adult-exclusive one? We’re part of the community, too,’ ” she said. “And I completely agreed with them.”
Stirn said finding a sponsor to fund the event, which requires the museum to stay open after hours and be fully staffed, didn’t happen within the time frame they were aiming for. But the museum felt so strongly about making it happen, she said, that the staff decided to move forward with holding focus groups and planning the night.
“We decided let’s just do this, let’s try this,” she said. “We saw that the need was there.”
A testament to the demand, she said, is what happened when the museum opened registration for the free event. Every ticket was quickly claimed. A total of 450 people registered.
Stirn doesn’t expect all 450 people to show. She understands that some people may not feel up to attending at the last minute or they may step inside the door and decide to step back out. But the staff has tried to reduce the number of potential triggers a person might encounter that night and they created a guide to let attendees know what to expect.
In working with autistic children, Stirn has seen how some parts of the museum can delight one person and upset another. In the lobby sits an Aston Martin DB5 from the James Bond movie “Goldfinger.” The tires spin, the license plate flips and other movements bring the sound of shooting. The elevators can also prove challenging for some people. The lights turn off, and red and blue lights flash. A recorded voice then relays a message that includes the phrase, “We’ll be watching you.”
Before planning the event the museum gathered advice from several groups, and after it the staff plans to offer surveys to learn what worked and what they could do differently.
“I’m just hoping we can do more of these, and that other places think of this community and offer similar stuff in the future,” Stirn said.
Deborah Hammer, who runs Cool Aspies and works for Arlington County Public Schools, said about 22 members of the club visited the museum earlier in the year to serve as a focus group. During their time there, she saw two members leave and others put their hands over their ears. She also received text messages from members who were in the same room as her but grew nervous when they couldn’t see her through the crowd.
Afterward, she said, the group spent about an hour and a half talking to the museum staff. One of their suggestions was that the night should offer attendees a chance to talk and meet new people. The social hour will provide the space and time for them to do that.
“I think it’s really important to provide spaces for adults who are neurodivergent to have differentiated experiences because they still want to enjoy events in the community,” Hammer said. “Just because they are 18 and older doesn’t mean they want to stop experiencing all we have to offer in the D.C. area.”
Members who felt uncomfortable during the first visit will be coming back Sunday, because they know it will be a different experience, she said.
“People are very excited about it,” she said. “There aren’t a lot of opportunities like this.”
One of the people from the group who will attend is Bretzfelder. He said he is excited about the social hour and already knows what he will ask the spy who attends: What country did he gather information on?
Another Cool Aspies member who plans on going is Aaron Lagunoff. The 27-year-old spends his weekdays doing custodial work at the FBI building, which places him near people who have done intelligence and law enforcement work. At the museum, he gets to take on that role himself: Guests are given a spy persona and a mission.
Lagunoff said he is looking forward to entering that world again — this time, in an environment that makes his friends more comfortable.
“I think it’s going to be a really fun experience,” he said. “I actually think it’s important because many neurodiverse people don’t really get the opportunity to experience nighttime events, especially at a museum.”
He also pointed to how the museum’s actions offer a lesson for other places that want to be more inclusive.
“I think listening to people and hearing people speak and give feedback or advice is actually a very good strategy,” he said. “Not just at the spy museum.”
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